A few years ago Brett and Danielle Tolley learned about a group called the FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria, Ore. “Gosh, there’s nothing like that on the Cape,” Danielle Tolley of Chatham remembers saying to her husband. “Why is the public so disconnected from the fishing community?” And so in 2014 the Tolleys and their close friends Shannon Eldredge and Russell Kingman, also of Chatham, founded the Cape Co...

"Off the record, any Chronicle men around?"  Both the Star and Bulletin are in the governor's back pocket during his run for U.S. Senate in an unnamed southern state, but not the crusading Chronicle in Monomoy Theatre's production of “Johnny On A Spot.” Ellen Fiske, playing Chronicle publisher Mrs. Wigmore, marches right into the offices of Governor Jefferson Davis Upjohn to confront his chief of staff Nicky A...

CHATHAM – The last time I was on stage at Monomoy Theatre was in 1998, when I sat in as a juror in “Inherit the Wind.” Seemed about time for a return engagement. For the past two summers, my youngest son Lir has appeared in shows at Monomoy, one of the last true summer stock theaters on the Cape. This year, there were no roles for 9 year olds in any of the season's eight plays. Although disappointed, the fa...

George Bernard Shaw once said, “No man will ever write a better tragedy than ‘Lear.’” Doing justice to Shakespeare’s words is no easy feat. Elements Theatre Company deftly portrays King Lear’s tragic life with spectacular pageantry and suspenseful swordplay befitting the grand ruler. The almost three-hour-long story begins with the aging King Lear of Britain (Brad Lussier) abdicating from his throne. Intending...

CHATHAM ─ The Monomoy Theatre's season finale is a play that is known as much for its ribald humor as its fugacious nature, but director MichaelJohn McGann is optimistic that the country's current political climate will propel “Johnny On A Spot” into side-splitting success. The show, which McGann describes as being “about a Yankee, a fixer, an amanuensis who comes to a Southern governor, gets to be his frien...

As with other aspects of life in Chatham, sharks have worked their way into the 45 th Festival of the Arts sponsored by the Creative Arts Center (CAC) in Chatham. “I have always loved sharks,” said Rich Benson of Harwich, a woodcarver, one of 120 artists and craftsmen participating in the show which begins on Friday. “I began carving whales, stripers, tuna and all kinds of fish back in the ‘80s,” Benson ex...

Ben instructs his wannabe comedy writer grandsons, Eugene and Stanley Jerome, in Simon's "Broadway Bound" now at the Monomoy Theatre: "If you make it funny enough, CBS won't even notice!"   Grandpa, who hasn't laughed since the stock market crashed, is an avowed socialist.  Ben is disappointed that his daughter Blanche has married the richest man in the garment district, thereby "starving half the country." Be...

It’s tough being a teenager, it’s tough living with a teenager. Teenagers in both mind and body are on the brink of adulthood and torn between that and their childhood. In the latest production at the Cape Cod Theatre Company, Home of the Harwich Junior Theatre, the usual angst of being a teenager is even more complicated. In “Selkie, Between Land and Sea” written by award-winning playwright and young adult...

HARWICH – Go figure. She’s the only person in her family who doesn’t wear glasses, and now Dr. Ashley Jadene Stevens is an optometrist. Having graduated in May from the New England College of Optometry in Boston, Stevens is now in practice with Sheinkopf and Tomasik Eye Care Associates in South Yarmouth. Dr. Sheinkopf has recently retired, which leaves plenty of work for his newly-minted colleague. This is ...

Who doesn't love Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” now at The Monomoy Theatre, Chatham? It was Shakespeare’s last play and in some respects the Merlin-like enchanter, protagonist Prospero, is the bard himself, using and then relinquishing his powers for one last time. “The Tempest” is a complex fairy tale: Prospero (Bernard Cornwell), the Dumbledore of his time, uses magic to cause a tempest which shipwrecks his tr...

Joshua Dykens, 23, was taking a semester off from Cape Cod Community College (CCCC), working in a West Chatham gas station, when he had an epiphany. “By the summer I realized I didn’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life, the next 40 years,” Dykens said during a recent interview in the West Chatham Dunkin’ Donuts. Up until then Dykens, a personable young man with infectious enthusiasm and drive, ha...

Chatham resident Elizabeth Rudnick Hessler recently published a new novel, “Pete's Dragon: The Lost Years,” a kind of prequel to Disney's 2016 remake of “Pete's Dragon,” which will be released in theaters, including the Chatham Orpheum Theater, this Friday. On Saturday, Aug. 13, Hessler will be at the Orpheum at 6 p.m. to sign copies of the new novel. We recently spoke with the author at the Lazy Lobster, whic...